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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29556375">The Sea Never Looked Back</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/FiresFromOurHearts/pseuds/FiresFromOurHearts'>FiresFromOurHearts</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Uncharted Waters [10]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Naruto</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, BAMF Uzumaki Naruto, Fuuinjutsu Master Uzumaki Naruto, Gen, Going back to the roots of this series in these tags huh, It's originally dye but then it's also not, OC reborn as Naruto, Pre-Canon, Red-Haired Uzumaki Naruto, Reincarnation, Uzukage Uzumaki Naruto, Uzumaki Naruto Leaves Konoha, Uzushiogakure | Hidden Eddy Village, thank you that is exactly what I was after</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 21:07:02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,409</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29556375</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/FiresFromOurHearts/pseuds/FiresFromOurHearts</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>In another life, Naruto had been someone else, <i>(he remembers the ocean)</i>. He'd been an Uzukage and an ANBU Commander and he'd been Uzushio's--not Konoha's. </p><p>In which Toru is not born as an Uchiha and Naruto leaves Konoha before he makes any friends. In which the world is a very, very different place, <i>(but that's not necessarily a bad thing)</i>.</p><p>Might be able to be read as a standalone, but could be slightly confusing - I think you should be right however.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Kyuubi | Nine-tails | Kurama &amp; Uzumaki Naruto, Uzumaki Naruto &amp; Uzushiogakure | Hidden Eddy Village</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Uncharted Waters [10]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1875832</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>114</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Sea Never Looked Back</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Uhh potentially a warning for body dysphoria? Naruto-Toru isn't happy with his current body appearance wise and mentions that it feels wrong.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It starts when he hears his name for the first time. He’s been called <em>you</em> and <em>beast</em> and <em>monster</em> and <em>demon</em> and <em>brat</em> and, occasionally, <em>boy</em>.</p><p>He’s in class, it’s his first one ever. The classroom is big and open and there are people. It’s loud and busy and he doesn’t know where to look. He’s too busy watching the world around him that when people start to move, he can only traipse after them into a field.</p><p>Looking around with wide eyes, he can’t help but be amazed at how big and green it is. He’s so far away from the trees and bushes as well! He’s never played outside of them. No one likes it when he does that.</p><p>There are some targets in the distance too, like those ones he sees in the really, really big parks that all the ninjas say he’s not allowed into, <em>(but they never chase him off so he always returns)</em>.</p><p>“Uzumaki Naruto!”</p><p>He continues look around, watching as the others shift into groups. Someone shoves him forward and he yelps, twisting to look over his shoulder and scowl at the teacher’s aide—who’d pushed him!</p><p>“Uzumaki!” The teacher in front of him snaps and he turns, confused, because that’s a name, <em>(and demons don’t get names)</em>. “What do you think you’re doing? Pay attention! Left group!”</p><p>He lets himself be shoved and herded into the group, chewing over the name in his mind because it hadn’t been anyone else’s—that much he knows. <em>Uzumaki Naruto</em>. He likes the sound of it. Kind-of. It sounds off. Can a name be off? It’s familiar but… still wrong because- because- because-</p><p>He hisses, frustrated. It’s just out of reach and then something deep in his stomach stirs, flicks, and energy floods his bones, his veins, his blood, his <em>soul</em>, and he knows. He knows. <em>He knows</em>.</p><p>Uzumaki is wrong—it’s wrong wrong wrong. It’s not Uzumaki. Never has been. It’s Mizushima. But the Uzumaki had been their allies, had been part of their village, they had all been Uzushio and that had been far more important than any clan divide.</p><p>The lesson passes in a blur and Toru—Naruto—Toru finds himself stuck in his own mind. Uzushio had held onto him, cradled his soul, and then let it return.</p><p>Except this isn’t his body. Isn’t anything Uzushio. It’s Konoha, through and through. Blonde hair and pale skin and blue eyes and it’s as far as you could get from who he’d once been.</p><p>As he heads home from the Academy, he spots a shop with hair dye in the window. He doesn’t have the money, but for the first time he thinks he could <em>do</em> something. It’s not in his budget, the shopkeeper overcharges him, but he’s felt wrong in his skin for too many hours. He needs something that ties him to Uzushio.</p><p>That night, he dyes his hair blood-red. The dye goes everywhere and sinks into everything and its splotchy in his hair. But, in the morning, it looks like his hair had always been red, <em>(it’s red like those in the Uzumaki Clan, red like how the sunset would occasionally turn the sky and the ocean, red like the blood that filled Uzushio’s streets while they died and died and died)</em>.</p><p>The next morning, he looks at himself in the mirror and feels like he is Uzushio, in some way. He smiles. His reflection smiles back, <em>(and the world continues to turn)</em>.</p><p>Here is what Toru will never notice: the dye in his hair never runs out.</p><p>
  <em>(Kurama sits up, takes notice.)</em>
</p><p>Three months after Toru remembers, he sits down and considers what he wants to do. The best way to do this is, obviously, to meditate. So Toru closes his eyes, lets his mind go black, and sinks into his thoughts.</p><p>But then he sinks and sinks and the world around him turns dark blue as he sinks through the ocean. He bursts through the seafloor and falls to his knees in the ruins of Uzushio. Blood, thick and dark red, clings to his legs and he gets to his feet, looking around. He isn’t in Uzushio, he knows that, <em>(yet his heart pounds and he can almost feel himself trembling)</em>.</p><p>In front of him, the harbour awaits and, with it, so too does a massive fox with nine tails. The Kyūbi, the most powerful bijū.</p><p>
  <em>(Jinchūriki. The role Mito formed for herself. The sacrifice she made. The choice she made. It is not a sacrifice Toru wanted to make. Not a choice he would make for himself. There was no choice here and someone else made Toru the sacrifice. Sometimes life is like that.)</em>
</p><p>The creature doesn’t look away from the rippling water, even as he approaches. Rather than look at the Kyūbi, Toru looks at the water. It’s like the sea, reflecting the sky, even as waves crash softly against the shore.</p><p>The sea is freedom, it always has been. The sea is the waves rising above him and the sea breeze smelling of salt and races full of laughter. This is that sea. The waves splash against his feet, drag the blood away, and it disappears.</p><p>Uzushio has not fallen. Uzushio will not fall. Uzushio <em>will</em> rise again. Toru steps out onto the sea and does not fall beneath the waves. He takes another step. Droplets of water cling to his legs from the waves. The wind smells like sea salt, <em>(smells like home)</em>.</p><p>Konoha will never keep him. Toru is made for Uzushio. Uzushio brought him back and Uzushio awaits him to rise again, <em>(and he will never be changed to this village that left him alone as a child and called him monster and demon when he’d only ever been a child)</em>.</p><p>“So who are you really?” The Kyūbi asks, and Toru looks away from the horizon and at the massive creature instead. They’re bigger than him, easily, with their fangs the same size as him. Their eyes glow red. This is the demon from stories and legends and they seem much less bloodthirsty than Toru had ever thought they would be, <em>(they’re much smaller too—much more human, less of… well, a demon)</em>.</p><p>“Toru,” he answers, because that’s the only person he’s ever been and only person he will ever claim to be. “Just Toru.”</p><p>“And where do you go?” The creature asked as Toru took another step out to sea. This time, they took a step with him, standing on top of the water rather than sinking beneath the waves.</p><p>“<em>Home</em>,” Toru says. “To where my village waits and where I can be free.” He looks at the Kyūbi and thinks of the sacrifice he never made, the choice he never wanted. “I don’t know much about jinchūriki seals I’m afraid, but someone might be able to free you without killing me.”</p><p>The creature tosses their head back and howls with laughter. “You are an interesting worm,” they say. “So long as you do not steal what is mine, I will be interested to watch what you do.”</p><p>“In that case, I hope I entertain you,” Toru says and he’s settled into a run now, <em>(though he is not in Uzushio or near Uzushio)</em>. “May I ask your name?”</p><p>“Kurama,” the great fox says and then Toru is opening his eyes to a blue sky and green trees.</p><p>This is not Toru’s village. This is not Uzushio. And so Toru does what he always does—he runs.</p><p>
  <em>(Konoha does not expect to track an Academy student with the skills of an ANBU Commander and so they do not find Toru. They assume he was stolen or killed, though no one ever knows why, and very few ever care for what happened.)</em>
</p><p>
  <em>(In the future, there will be rumours of a Kyūbi jinchūriki and Danzō will send ROOT to capture the person, the wayward weapon, prepared to make a new tool of his own. Instead of such a thing, however, he gets Toru who pulls the roof down and discovers secrets and steals away with a brainwashed army that he wants to try and save.)</em>
</p><p>
  <em>(This is how it goes, in the end. Toru has enemies and he has allies. He has Uzushio at his back and Konoha searching for him. He has Kurama’s laughter in his head and Kurama’s snarl on his face. He is Toru and he always has been.)</em>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>You get some sad childhood feels for Naruto, because apparently that is today's jam. </p><p>Why does the dye never run out? Hell if I know. Uzushio somehow? Kurama maybe? This world has so many weird things you can just accept this as one of those things. </p><p>Don't ask me why Toru is running when he's literally in his mind, I don't know. I'm just rolling with this now. Maybe it's how he thought he'd leave his mind, who knows. </p><p>Honestly, very proud of that ending it's quite nice. But that's everything from me for this one. It's a little bit on the short side, but the next one will be slightly longer (I think) so you can enjoy that! </p><p>Feel free to catch me on <a href="https://silent-silver-slip.tumblr.com/">tumblr</a> or if you want to find me on Discord, drop a message. Or, if you really want, you can come and join the Discord server, which is about writing and reading and I mention updates for various things.  The invite is this link <a href="https://discord.gg/DTbGtSc">here</a>. </p><p>Hope you're all well! I'll see you all in the next update.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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